The Victoria Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources has opened a Request for Tender for engineering advisory services relating to the replacement of high voltage powerlines.
The engineering firm would be required to provide consultancy services on the detailed designs submitted by Distribution Network Service Providers (DNSPs) for the replacement of powerlines, doing technical due diligence, reviewing the designs, and creating reports on the designs.
Following the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission which looked into the Black Saturday bushfires, the Victorian Government committed to a 10-year, $750 million Powerline Bushfire Safety Program (PBSP) to reduce bushfire risk associated with electricity assets.
Part of this program is the Powerline Replacement Fund project, which commits $200 million over 10 years to replace bare wire electricity distribution lines in areas of high bushfire risk, in rural and regional Victoria.
The program will target the replacement of powerlines that represent the greatest bushfire risk. These are 22 kV, 11 kV or 12.7 kV Single-wire Earth Return (SWER) lines that are overhead and uninsulated, in ten target areas. The actual replacement work will be executed by the Distribution Network Service Providers.
AusNet Services and Powercor, the DNSPs, will submit detailed proposals for these replacements, which powerline replacements, which will be evaluated by the winner of this tender. The Assessment Advisory Panel will evaluate the proposals based on the report to arrive at a recommendation. The Program Control Board will then decide whether to approve the project or not.
The winning firm will need to review and report on the detailed designs, and also undertake site visits to confirm that the completed works have been performed satisfactorily.
The engineering consultancy service provider will need to ensure that that the project summary and overall description of works is consistent with the detailed technical drawings and schematics. They will also need to establish that the detailed design proposal is consistent with the initial proposal and, where there is a difference, satisfy the government that there has been no material erosion of the risk reduction impact.
They will also need to determine that any replacement services or designs are “like for like” -- that there is no augmentation of works and that the proposals serve only to reduce bushfire risk, and assess if the cost of a proposed project is reasonable.
Once the DNSPs have completed the project, they will notify the Department that they intend to issue a Certificate of Completion. The engineering firm will have to execute a site visit within eight days of this notice, then provide a report back to the Department within three business days of the visit.
The on-site audit will verify that the works have been completed in accordance with the detailed designs; and advise what, if any, departure there has been from the designs and if that departure is significant.
If successful in the tender, the firm will start work on the projects on 1 February 2016, through to 1 February 2018.